Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Why I Won't Eat Salmon

I've touched upon this topic many times over the last few years, but my last post here got me thinking more on the subject.

1. A lot of salmon that is sold is farm salmon. This is where they keep salmon in large net pens and feed them pellets that are chocked with antibiotics and color additives so as to alter the color of the fish from the anemic paleness that farm fish have by their nature to an artificial health pink color of the wild variety.

2. Fish living in net pens have a lot of waste that goes to the floor beneath their net pens and the tides will move and stir their waste which the fish will often re-consume either through their mouths or their gills.

3. Hatcheries are ruining the wild stock. Just because a salmon is fortunate enough to make it past the predators and the gill nets and can slither into the weirs of the hatchery doesn't make it a superior fish. Hatcheries are not at the head waters of a stream. They interrupt the journey sometimes by miles. They capture female fish and squeeze out their eggs into buckets and then they squeeze the males and their sperm goes into fertilize the eggs. There is no regard for natural selection where a female can accept or reject a mate. Fish know the desirable traits for a mate; just like how humans qualify an appropriate mate. All these sperm and eggs are mixed together like a genetic lottery and a weaker fish can be produced from this random pairing. Rather than nature adding strength, humans are breading the fish for random results.

4. Salmon are call an androgynous fish, not because they have hermaphroditic sexual assignments, but rather because they live in fresh and salt water. The problem is that when when salmon return to fresh water to mate and end their lives they stop eating and their flesh goes through changes as their purpose becomes totally dedicated to reproduction. This change alters the flavor of the fish. Ocean caught salmon have a different taste that they do when they return to the fresh water. I can only describe it as (to me) unpleasant and "perfumy", but anglers think that if the fish is still bright in color that it's as good as ocean caught; it's not. As soon as the salinity in the salmons environment drops so does its flavor. It is beginning to decompose for death.

5. A salmon returning to spawn does not eat. The only reason they seem to bite on a lure is because it is in their space and pissing them off which is hardly a noble way to catch a fish.

In conclusion, I don't think most humans want to save the salmon because they are an integral part of the health of our environment, but rather because they are a natural resource up for mass consumption. Why must there always be a hidden agenda when something needs to be protected or preserved? It is usually more about stopping things than it is about altering our behavior to save something that is endangered. It is like the animals we want to protect are only poster children and marketing tools for people that claim to be environmentalist.